Naoki Hyakuta “The population of Tottori Prefecture is about several hundred thousand people． The person selected from there will become the Prime Minister of Japan． “Enough already．”

Comments made by author and leader of the political group Japan Conservative Party, Naoki Hyakuta, on his YouTube channel about Tottori, the prefecture that elected the new LDP President, Shigeru Ishiba, have sparked controversy online. In the video, he declares that the election of former Secretary-General Shigeru Ishiba as the new president means “the end of the LDP,” and goes on to criticize Ishiba. Among other things, Momota said, “Originally, it was Tottori Prefecture or something. How many people are there in Tottori prefecture? The population of Tottori prefecture is incredibly small. How many are there? Probably hundreds of thousands. The person selected from there will become the Prime Minister of Japan. Enough already,” he said. As this comment went beyond criticism of Ishiba and could be perceived as disregarding the sparsely populated Tottori prefecture itself, there were few voices defending him on X (the former Twitter). Instead, there were an abundance of critical comments such as “He didn’t win with the votes of Tottori prefecture,” “No matter how much you dislike Ishiba, it’s extremely unpleasant to hear him make such comments that seem to make fun of Tottori prefecture,” “I don’t like Ishiba Shigeru, but I can’t criticize him with this kind of logic,” and “Based on that logic, it would mean that only a member of parliament elected by Tokyo can become prime minister.” “Is this really conservative?” “Even though I’m a conservative, I can’t support this at all.” That’s too extreme…” “Naoki Hyakuta is a regional racist” “There’s no way a party whose leader discriminates against rural areas can be conservative” “How we protect rural areas like Tottori Prefecture has a bearing on the future of Japan. There were also many posts questioning the Japan Conservative Party itself, such as, “You and your party are neither Japanese nor conservative.” Tottori Prefecture has a population of just under 540,000, the smallest of all 47 prefectures, but the single-seat constituency system takes into account population differences among voters in order to reduce the “gap in one vote.” Also, keeping in mind that Hyakuta had a close relationship with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, he said, “Tottori has 500,000 people, and Yamaguchi has 1.2 million people, both of which are rural areas. There were also many notable comments such as, “If it’s not okay for someone elected by a small number of people to become prime minister, then in the 2021 House of Representatives election, more people wrote that Abe Shinzo got 80,448 votes in Yamaguchi 4th district, Tottori 1st district, and Ishiba Shigeru got 105,441 votes in Ishiba Shigeru’s election.” and “Are you trying to embarrass Abe-san?”

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